08 January 2013

Technology Tuesday - Pulling Evidence from Thin Paper

As I'd posted on Google+ a few days ago, before Christmas I found a piece of software that's absolutely changed how I look at my research. It has nothing to do with genealogy, and everything to do with genealogy. I contacted the owner and asked if it would be alright for me to write about it and he said he'd be happy for me to do that. In the interest of really getting the word out, I told him it'd be my post for today. (Disclosure: I have no connection to the maker of this software, and am not being compensated in any way for this post).So, with out further ado, let me introduce you to: EvidentiaEvidentia is an easy to use, inexpensive ($19.95 as of this post) way to capture EVERY piece of evidence something holds. My research is no longer about my genealogy database, my digital files, my physical files, my photos and ephemera. It's all about the evidence they hold. That is NOT to say that I'm not seeking the story of my ancestor's lives: quite the contrary. I genuinely want to ensure that the ancestor's I'm writing about are MY ancestors, and not someone else that I made fit based on my own incomplete research or faulty analysis of the research I have.Here's how it works: each item that you have that holds evidence about your ancestor (remember, I made an argument that a Brazilian coin helped solidify my argument that an ancestor of mine had been to Brazil in the mid-1800s) can be entered into the database as a Source. There are a large number of templates that you can use, so you don't have to know how to do this exactly in order to get it right. Once the Source itself is entered - for this example, let's say it's a page in a book (each individual page can be entered to narrow down each piece of evidence; not as time consuming as it might seem!) - the database automatically creates the Source Citation for you. *Cheering* But, the best parts are to come. Welcome to the world of "Catalog Claims". That's right: Claims. Because, as we all know, the 'information' that we find may or may not be accurate. Death records and documents always pop into my mind regarding this because far, far too often what's on them is only partially accurate. So, while the document is helpful, it can cause hours of going down the wrong trail. And don't get me started about oral history. I loved my Grandmother, but she was a prevaricator barre none. However, in Evidentia, you can enter 'oral history' as a Source!! ANYTHING can be a Source. Love that flexibility. And did I mention the database creates the Citation for you? Going back to our page in the book: let's say it's a family history book with a small genealogy of your family. Every single item in that genealogy - names, dates, relationships, places, events - are Claims. And every single one is entered into the database. Yes, THIS is time consuming, I will admit. But it's not just 'Laura L. Greene was born 03 Feb 1837' that you enter. Each Claim has a Subject attached to it! In this case, Laura Louisa Greene is my Subject. Oh, but wait! I also have 'Date of Birth' as a Subject. And, this is where it gets SO good: each Claim with Subject gets 'Info Quality' as well. This is the place where you attach to the Claim within the Source whether the evidence is Primary, Secondary or Unknown. That's right. The database will hold this information for later, and trust me, the icing on the cake is coming.So, your Source is entered and you've entered lots of Claims. You've attached Subjects to the Claims and provided Info Quality to each individual Claim. Now comes the fun part:

Analyze Evidence

This simple little Screen has two pull-down fields at the top:

Subject and Claim. In this case, I chose the Subject 'Laura Louisa Greene' and 'Date of Birth'. The screen then populates an 'Assertions' column with all the evidence that's been entered associated with these two Subjects. No rifling through paper to recheck dates, no going back and forth between your database and research notes; every single claim that is associated with 'Laura Louisa Greene' and 'Date of Birth' is listed. What's more, here's the icing part: for each and every Claim, you MUST select 'Evidence Quality'. This is the place where you decide whether the evidence is qualified as Direct, Indirect or Negative. There's also a box to enter your own analysis of each item individually. What's incredibly cool about this step is that you genuinely get to think critically about the evidence you've entered, about the quality of the Source, the Claim and the Evidence as a whole.

An additional and very important aspect of the 'Analyze Evidence' screen is that there is a tiny little icon you can click that opens up a Research Notes log, allowing you to enter notes, tasks, etc. as you're doing your analysis. So, if you realize that you've forgotten to get that birth record from the Index you found while you were online last week, you can add that Note in your analysis.

In the end, there is a 'Summary Conclusion'. After looking at all the evidence together, analyzing the quality of that evidence, comparing and contrasting contradictory evidence, evaluating negative evidence, when all that is done - or at any point you wish in between - you get to write a summary conclusion about your Assertion. And, you've just gone step by step through the Genealogical Proof Standard!

Does this sound intriguing to you? In the few days that I had a chance to kick the tires on this software, I realized just how much information I have around that I have NOT used as evidence, that I have more evidence that I need on some people and almost none on others. I re-evaluated the quality of my own analysis and found that though on some claims I have strong evidence, there are others where the evidence is so very, very weak and in one case I have NO evidence at all! That's not a bad thing: this software helped me to refocus on the aspects of my research that need my attention first.

There are numerous reports that can be run: too many to discuss in this post.

So, what do you think? A lot of work? Perhaps. But, as a budding Professional Genealogist and an avid researcher of just about everything, this is a tool I can see myself using to ramp up the quality of my work exponentially. The ways in which I can use this software in other ways is very wide.

As I mentioned several times, I'm just kicking the tires on this, but was so excited by it I wanted to share it. Check out the website, or the videos on YouTube that show the software in action. I know this won't be right for everyone, but I'm guessing a lot of you may find it very helpful. If you do, please pass it on to those you think might be able to use it also. And for the current cost, what do you have to lose?

I passed this post to a few of the Interns/Assistant Researchers for review. They want to check out all the features and try it. So going to download today. This may be just what we need, when doing joint work on a client. Thanks for sharing. Kathleen, a3genealogy.com

Kathleen, I certainly hope this is something you can use, and I hadn't even thought of using it in a collaborative manner! Thanks for commenting here, and please do let me know what you find after 'kicking the tires'.

Found Ed's post the other day by accident and was curious. Clipped it to Evernote for follow up this week. I'll be curious to see how this software can be utilized to make some of my research blog posts better/faster as well.

Hoping to get cracking on this in the coming weeks. Thanks for highlighting.

I stumbled over Ed's post on December 17th (http://evidentia.ed4becky.net/tada/)and clipped it to take a look at it 'when I had a minute'. LOL Needless to say, it wasn't until the 20th that I read the post and downloaded Evidentia. I was just amazed at what it could do, as well as the other ways I could see it being used. I contacted Ed right away, but told him I didn't see any point in doing a blog post during the height of the holidays, and that I'd wait until the 8th for the first real Tech Tuesday of the year.

I'm so happy that lots of people are commenting and (apparently) seriously looking at it; I truly believe this is going to change the quality of my research analysis exponentially. Not to mention be a significantly better repository (database) for all the source material I've acquired over the last 20 years. :-)

This sounds like a satisfying way to analyze evidence. So you're saying each Claim with Subject's "Info Quality" you can rate as Primary, Secondary, or Unknown, and then each Claim's "Evidence Quality" can be Direct, Indirect, or Negative. I think I can understand this distinction enough to try it out? And I really like the idea that the software takes you step-by-step through the Genealogical Proof Standard! Plus that the database does citations.

Right now I'm using FTM, so that my sources and evidence are in the form of "hints" accepted or ignored. Ignored hints are mostly public trees, but I keep them set aside as "clues" for more evidence, too. That's unwieldy -- yours sounds better.

Through ancestry.com (combined with FTM) I can generate Register Reports, so that in the end I can submit all this information (many hundreds of ancestors) to genealogy libraries and some primary documents to archives somewhere. Probably Evidentia can produce something like Register Reports?

Mariann, Evidentia can create the reports, but it's not just regurgitating the data you've entered, it's requiring you to analyze that data, qualify the quality of it and create a Summary Conclusion. It holds your hand as you take a piece of evidence and glean all that you can from it, then takes everything you've gleaned and allows you to analyze that as a whole. I, too, use FTM and Ancestry online, although I've kept my online tree strictly private. It more closely resembles a tree using the GPS and I'm so very excited about my ability, using Evidentia, to truly do a reasonably exhaustive search.I'd suggest taking a look at the video tutorials; I linked to them in the post and they're a free way to see the software in action.Glad you liked it, as always!

Really interested to hear how your experience with it has gone after a few weeks of use. I downloaded it over the holidays and have started testing it out. I ran into a few bugs but the developer, Ed, has been very responsive and said they should be fixed by the next release.

Hi! I had a bit of a hiccup at the very beginning with the program not loading when I wasn't connected to the Internet, but that was quickly resolved when I loaded the Update. Other than that, I haven't run into anything. I'll keep you posted, though. Thanks for taking the time to read and comment, I appreciate it!

I remember reading about Evidentia when they were looking for beta testers, but I just didn't have the time to do it. From your description, it sounds like it is right up my alley. I had already decided that I needed to do a better job getting my sources in order this year and I think this could be a great tool to re-evaluate what I have and see what I need to work on. I'll just need to make the time to do the data entry.

Sonja, I'm in the same position, but I felt that the extra time and effort would provide a result that I'm exceedingly happy with. Truly, going back over each document and pulling Claims has been a great teaching/refresher tool; I'm exercising my thought process as to what a 'claim' is, and even finding evidence I didn't realize some of the documents hold. That's great in and of itself.

I use The Master Genealogist software. It has that functionality for grading and evaluating your evidence and was one of the reasons I selected it. Have you ever checked it out? How do you tie in Evidentia to your genealogy software or your ancestry.com tree without duplicating your efforts?

I have seen MG before, but have been using FTM since version 2. I'm using Evidentia as an additional tool to enhance my Source record keeping, eliminate my need to create high quality citations(it does it for me) and to provide a place outside the database where I keep my data to analyze the evidence I've amassed. This is how *I'm* using it; I recognize that other researchers/family historians/genealogists may not use it the same way or find it as helpful.

BTW, as I'm moving to a new, online family tree on Ancestry, I simply copy and paste the information from the tree into Evidentia, so I don't have to do double entry and/or risk making an error.

Interesting, interesting. I would like to hear and see more about this and how it works with the various software options such as Legacy. A webinar would be awesome. Thanks for such a detailed post Laura.

I'm sorry I missed this post. I just learned about Evidentia from a post at In-Depth Genealogist yesterday. I took a look and downloaded it right away. Spent some time adding sources for on of my ancestor's birth & death events and went through the whole process.Loved the results and plan to use this tool often in the future.You did a great job explaining the process and software. Nice post!!

Well, technically you didn't miss it, and that's what's really important, right?! I'm glad you like Evidentia as much as I do and that you appreciated my post. I equally appreciate that you took the time to comment. Thanks!!

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